Many poor cancer patients have no recourse but to make their way to the ‘open air ward’ outside Tata Memorial Hospital. An important new study suggests that delay in diagnosis and treatment may be responsible for the rate of cancer deaths in rural India matching urban India, and being twice as high in the least versus most educated segments

With a Rs 6,750-crore fast food industry growing at 35% annually, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disorders are rising sharply. How is this slow-motion health disaster to be tackled?

Scores of women living in inaccessible island villages across West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district are finally able to access ante- and postnatal healthcare, and have institutional deliveries at community delivery centres and hospitals

Minnie Vaid travels to Bagrumnala, a Khmar tribal village tucked away in the forests of Chhattisgarh, where Binayak Sen is a legend, and where he set up a remarkable model of rural healthcare, working with the community on everything from healthcare to nutrition and education

The Indian government has been quick to rubbish the Lancet study on the NDM-1 bacterium, choosing to see this as a commercial problem that will impact our growing medical tourism industry, rather than as a healthcare problem that could seriously impact a country where antibiotics are overused and where scant attention is paid to infection control in hospitals

Cervical cancer affects millions in India. It can be effectively treated if diagnosed early. Now, the VIA/VILI kit, which costs only Rs 5 and can be used by any healthcare professional, is being introduced across Tamil Nadu, offering women the possibility of early detection and treatment

The government’s Janani Suraksha Yojana is pushing pregnant women towards institutional deliveries, but a study finds that the system is not ready to handle them. Women report terrible experiences at public health centres

Though many migrant workers from south Madhya Pradesh have died of the incurable workplace disease called silicosis contracted from inhaling quartz dust in stone crushing factories in Gujarat, the public health system has carried out no comprehensive survey to identify the disease, which is often passed off as tuberculosis, many factories have not installed anti-pollution systems, and the NHRC has been sitting on the case since 2006